Data & Research

The numbers behind the iOS App Store's 10-year stay

You could say it's been a bit of a success

The numbers behind the iOS App Store's 10-year stay

As anyone with any proximity to the mobile industry may know, or a phone for that matter, the iOS App Store turned 10 this week. 

It'a been a whirlwind 10 years since the App Store went live.

During that time the mobile industry has stolen the march on PC and console. As the data show, mobile games are expected to bring in $70.3 billion in 2018, accounting for more than half of the global games market as it reaches $137.9 billion this year.

Happy birthday

The momentum shows no signs of slowing either with mobile revenue growth expected to outpace the overall games market by hitting $106.4 billion in 2021. On top of that, smartphone and tablet games combined will generate 59 per cent of revenues in the entire market.

The iOS App store has made a leading contribution to the mobile industry's serge. As we dived into previously, just some of its accomplishments include making games more accessible to the world, ushering in games-as-a-service and leading the way for the ever infamous free-to-play model. 

Today, however, we're getting into the nitty-gritty of some the stats behind the App Store's 10-year tenure. 


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  • Total App Store downloads for apps and games

    Total App Store downloads for apps and games logo

    From July 2010 to December 2017 the iOS App Store has seen a lofty 170 billion downloads and counting.  

    The biggest contributor to the downloads is the US, with 40.1 billion downloads. Not far behind though is China with 39.9 billion.

    Following on from that is Japan with 9.5 billion and the UK with eight billion.

    Mobing forward, Asia-Pacific countries will likely take a more sizable lead in downloads. In 2017 alone it accounted for 14.8 billion downloads out of the 30.5 billion total for the year.


  • Total revenue generated through the App Store

    Total revenue generated through the App Store logo

    From its inception up until December of last year, the iOS Store has seen a cool $130 billion in revenues come in

    The top four countries remain unchanged from downloads (US, China, Japan and UK), though the US enjoys a bit more of a lead with $36 billion contributed in revenue in comparison to China's $27.7 billion.

    Interestingly, despite being quite far behind China in downloads Japanese players generated $25.2 billion in revenues. 

    In 2017 alone Asia-Pacific countries racked up $25.2 billion in consumer spending. That's over half of the $42.5 billion racked up for the year in total. 

    To cap it all off, by 2022 consumer spend in the iOS App Store is reported to reach $75.7 billion, which would represent an 80 per cent increase from 2017.


  • The highest grossing App Store games and apps

    The highest grossing App Store games and apps logo

    Long before Fortnite and PUBG turned heads for bringing in the big bucks, it was none other than Supercell's Clash of Clans that took our attention. 

    Since launching in back in 2012, Supercell's hit strategy has snagged $4 billion in revenues from the App Store alone. In case you were wondering, it's reportedly taken in $6 billion in total, with 1.2 billion of that coming in 2017 alone

    Following on the second highest grosser of the App Store's tenure is King's Candy Crush Saga andin third is Mixi's Monster Strike.

    On the app front the highest grosser was Netflix followed by Spotify, with Pandoa Radio in third.

  • The most downloaded App Store games and apps

    The most downloaded App Store games and apps logo

    While King's Candy Crush Saga took the second prize regarding grossing it has gone a step above when it comes to downloads. 

    Since releasing in 2012 the match-three blockbusteer has garnered 280 million downloads.

    Late last year King revealed that across both iOS and Android the hit game had seen 1.1 trillion rounds of play. That roughly equates to every person in the US playing two rounds a day for the last five years.

    Kiloo’s Subway Surfers and Halfbrick’s Fruit Ninja placed in second and third.

    In terms of apps the most downloads came from Facebook with messenger taking the second spot. Third up was YouTube's application. 

  • Then versus now: The total number of App Store apps

    Then versus now: The total number of App Store apps logo

    Since the dawn of the app store we've seen over 4.5 million apps come in.

    As of 2017 around 77 per cent of those are games. In terms of growth we've seen it surge from just under 0.2 million in 2009 with the million mark broken in 2012.

    Interestingly, there was ever so slightly more games back then with 84 per cent. 

    As time has gone on we've also seen more apps overall break the million mark in spending. In 2012 the number stood at 770 while there has been a jump up to 2,857 in 2017.


Staff Writer

Iain is a freelance writer based in Scotland with a penchant for indies and all things Nintendo. Alongside PocketGamer.Biz, he has also appeared in Kotaku, Rock Paper Shotgun, PCGamesN and VG24/7.